James Kirkup is The Telegraph's Executive Editor (Politics). He was previously the Telegraph's Political Editor and has worked at Westminster since 2001.

David Cameron is miles away from delivering on his immigration promise. Will he repeat it at the election?

Official statistics showed net immigration to the UK was 212,000 in the year to September, up 58,000. That’s a long, long way from the “tens of thousands” promised in the Conservative Party manifesto in 2010.

Not that David Cameron is daunted. Downing Street is insisting that the “tens of thousands” can still be met, a position that’s starting to sound heroically optimistic. Indeed, even Conservative ministers have privately given up on the target; whispers in Whitehall suggest Mr Cameron has been heard to complain privately that he and Theresa May are the only people left who still believe in the “tens of thousands” goal.

No 10’s position may strike some as delusional, but there is method to the madness. Some Tory strategists believe it’s important to go on signalling to voters what the party *wants* to do, even if it can’t actually do it. For them, intention is at least as important as delivery. There’ll be a lot more of this stuff as the general election approaches: yes, we failed to go all the way on our various promises, but that’s because those damned Lib Dems held us back. If you want proper Tory policies like low immigration, vote yourself a proper Tory government with a full majority. Give us the tools and we will finish the job, as an earlier Conservative leader once said.

Will voters buy this, effectively telling the Conservatives: “Oh well, you did your best. Have another go”? That may strike many as an optimistic view. Aren’t voters rather cynical about politicians who fail to deliver on their promises?

The immigration figures loomed over Mr Cameron’s pomp-and-ceremony day with Angela Merkel today, though oddly the figures weren’t mentioned during the visit. A large part of the rise in net immigration is down to EU nationals exercising their right to free movement, coming to live and work in the UK’s recovering economy. (Vince Cable, incidentally, has suggested that means today’s figures are “good news”, a view not shared by his Conservative colleagues.)

Mrs Merkel was kind enough to Mr Cameron to suggest that she could work with him on changes to those freedom of movement rules, but only in relation to benefits claims; the fundamental right of labour to move freely will not be on the table when Mr Cameron seeks to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership in the coming years. Mr Cameron, who is studiously vague about exactly what he will seek in that renegotiation, is not keen to dwell on that fact, but the reality is surely that unless the UK were to put itself outside those freedom of movement rules, the “tens of thousands” goal will remain elusive. Perhaps the key test is whether that pledge will be repeated in the Conservative Party manifesto next year, or be replaced by something more rather less specific.